Ten-Minute Blog Break - 8th July

There will be those amongst you who thought that Sarah McIntyre couldn't possibly top the insane headgear that she wore to launch Oliver and the Seawigs (a six-foot pink confection with a sailing ship on the top). You were wrong.

For the press launch of Seawigs follow-up Cakes in Space, Sarah sports a... well, I'll let you read the blog and find out. I particularly love the transformation that Sarah has wrought on Philip Reeve, who was such a quiet, reserved man when I first met him a few years ago, but is now wearing blue lipstick and dressing like 1970s David Bowie!

There's more good news with another SCBWI book launch, this time for Cliff McNish's Going Home. In fact, it's a double SCBWI success, because Trish Phillips has illustrated the book and blogs about the launch over at Big Little Tales.

K.M. Lockwood starts her latest blog post in something of a quandary. Should she be honest about a subject that's troubling her, or keep quiet for fear of making a bad impression? Fortunately for us, she plumps for the former and reveals her struggles with an unexpected problem - receiving praise for her work.

Sarah Broadley is doing some hands-on research this week, at her local children's library. But after being thrown out by the librarians(!), she returns home to share her own list of top 5 favourite picture books.

Finally, Dave Cousins is reliving his days of being in a rock band by taking his latest book on tour. Charlie Merrick's Misfits is all about football, and Dave's school audiences have a lot of fun with felt-tips making some dream football kit designs.

Nick.

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Nick Cross is a children's writer, ex-zombie and part-time superhero who was born with an intense phobia of Twiglets. Twice voted President of the Universe, Nick has been married on no less than twelve occasions and is a black belt in ju-jukebox (the ancient martial art of compiling playlists). A formidable sportsman, Nick was runner-up at the 2014 world tiddlywinks championship (he also holds the world record for wrapping sellotape around a small child). Nick's other hobbies include embroidery, chainsaw juggling, writing environmentally-sound haikus for Porridge Magazine and telling lies.

Ten-Minute Blog Break - 21st May

It started as a bit of a slow week in the SCBWI blogosphere, with a lot of people clearly still recovering from the SCBWI retreat! Luckily some great posts have popped up in the last couple of days, so I do have plenty to discuss...


Talking of the retreat, I'm hoping we'll get a report on Words & Pictures about it in due course. But in the meantime, Julie Day blogs about the weekend and on being brave in reading out her work, and showing it to others. Actually, there were a lot of brave people at the Sunday night read-through, and the quality and diversity of the writing was phenomenal. I know my heart was hammering like mad as I tried to calmly read off my laptop screen!

Jo Wyton weighs in on the gay marriage debate with an impassioned post about sexual diversity in YA. She discusses the different approaches in the US and UK book market and highlights a book with the gloriously provocative title Two Boys Kissing. I couldn't even begin to work out how to structure a book about two characters kissing for 32 hours, but I'm really glad someone's tried.

Amanda Lillywhite's daughter was lucky enough to win a trial subscription to The Phoenix comic, and Amanda analyses the first copy to drop through her letterbox. I have to admit to being hopelessly biased here, as my family have been subscribers to The Phoenix from day one and we even keep all our back issues in a special binder (we especially like the very funny Star Cat).

Finally, in what seems to be turning into the "guest post slot", we have a couple of great contributions from Cathy MacPhail and Cliff McNish. Cathy blogged for the edge about handling dark and gritty subjects in teen books, and she's certainly not one to turn away from some incredibly harrowing plotlines. Cliff's piece on deepening characters is structured as an extended conversation between himself and Candy Gourlay, and contains oodles of good stuff. So go read it already!

Nick

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Nick Cross is a children's writer, blogger and all-round digital guru. In 2010 he was a winner of Undiscovered Voices with his zombie comedy Back from the Dead.
Read Nick's latest blog post, a very serious look at some Common Writing Disorders. And we'll have no sniggering at the back, do you hear?